Economist: Obama’s not who we thought he was

posted at 9:38 am on March 28, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

The fact that Barack Obama won endorsements from most daily newspapers comes as no surprise to American readers, as they mostly go with Democrats regardless of the specific candidates. Some of us got surprised when publications like The Economist chose to back Obama, however, considering their normally sober analysis of economics and the radicalism and inexperience Obama brought to the campaign. Now, The Economist has had a Road to Damascus moment just two months after their candidate took office (via QandO):

His performance has been weaker than those who endorsed his candidacy, including this newspaper, had hoped. Many of his strongest supporters—liberal columnists, prominent donors, Democratic Party stalwarts—have started to question him. As for those not so beholden, polls show that independent voters again prefer Republicans to Democrats, a startling reversal of fortune in just a few weeks. Mr Obama’s once-celestial approval ratings are about where George Bush’s were at this stage in his awful presidency. Despite his resounding electoral victory, his solid majorities in both chambers of Congress and the obvious goodwill of the bulk of the electorate, Mr Obama has seemed curiously feeble.

Why “curiously”? After all, Obama had next to no executive experience before running for the presidency. His only executive experience came at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where Obama spent over $160 million and had no effect on education. He has never been responsible for a public budget, public appointments, or economic policy. And they find his poor performance “curious”? Would The Economist have hired Obama to run their magazine based on his resumé and then found his incompetence “curious”?

The magazine then scolds Obama for not doing the basics:

His stimulus package, though huge, was subcontracted to Congress, which did a mediocre job: too much of the money will arrive too late to be of help in the current crisis. His budget, though in some ways more honest than his predecessor’s, is wildly optimistic. And he has taken too long to produce his plan for dealing with the trillions of dollars of toxic assets which fester on banks’ balance-sheets.

How is it “more honest” than Bush? Deficits actually went down during Bush’s second term, at least until 2008. Obama says he’s all about reducing the deficit, but even by his own OMB predictions, the Obama budgets never return even to the 2008 level in the next 12 years. By the CBO’s account, both of which rely on “wildly optimistic” growth during the period, Obama won’t even come close. Now that Social Security surpluses have vanished far more quickly than anyone except George Bush predicted, they’ll get higher than either prediction.

The failure to staff the Treasury is a shocking illustration of administrative drift. There are 23 slots at the department that need confirmation by the Senate, and only two have been filled. This is not the Senate’s fault. Mr Obama has made a series of bad picks of people who have chosen or been forced to withdraw; and it was only this week that he announced his candidates for two of the department’s four most senior posts. Filling such jobs is always a tortuous business in America, but Mr Obama has made it harder by insisting on a level of scrutiny far beyond anything previously attempted. Getting the Treasury team in place ought to have been his first priority.

As I reported weeks ago, the Obama administration has done almost nothing to staff what should be the highest-priority positions in an economic crisis. That’s simply executive incompetence, and it can’t all be blamed on Obama’s level of scrutiny. The man at the top of Treasury committed tax evasion, and he’s still around. Obama issued a waiver a day for his anti-lobbyist policy in the first two weeks of his administration. If there are literally no candidates of any qualification who have paid their taxes properly, maybe that’s an indication that we should simplify our tax codes rather than make them even more complicated and punitive, as Obama has proposed.

Mr Obama has mishandled his relations with both sides in Congress. Though he campaigned as a centrist and promised an era of post-partisan government, that’s not how he has behaved. His stimulus bill attracted only three Republican votes in the Senate and none in the House. … Republicans must take their share of the blame for the breakdown. But if Mr Obama had done a better job of selling his package, and had worked harder at making sure that Republicans were included in drafting it, they would have found it more difficult to oppose his plans.

What share? Obama outsourced the stimulus to Pelosi, who locked Republicans out. The Economist even noted that earlier in this article! Obama abdicated leadership on the stimulus plan and endorsed Pelosi’s “we won” policy — in fact, explicitly repeating it to Republicans whom he courted. The Economist hits Democrats next, however:

If Mr Obama cannot work with the Republicans, he needs to be certain that he controls his own party. Unfortunately, he seems unable to. Put bluntly, the Democrats are messing him around. They are pushing pro-trade-union legislation (notably a measure to get rid of secret ballots) even though he doesn’t want them to do so; they have been roughing up the bankers even though it makes his task of fixing the economy much harder; they have stuffed his stimulus package and his appropriations bill with pork, even though this damages him and his party in the eyes of the electorate. Worst of all, he is letting them get away with it.

They’re doing all of this despite Obama? Hell, no. Obama himself talked about “shaking with outrage” over the bonuses and openly encouraged the “clawback” movement on Capitol Hill until saner heads prevailed. The Economist must also have missed Obama’s promise to Big Labor during the campaign (which got The Economist’s endorsement, remember) to make Card Check one of his top priorities once he got elected. He co-sponsored it in the Senate in 2007. In fact, in January, Obama told the Washington Post of his continuing support for it. Does The Economist believe in research any longer?

If Obama is not who The Economist thought he was, then the fault lies with The Economist and not Obama. The scales may be falling from their eyes now, but if they had done their jobs a few months ago, it wouldn’t be necessary at all.

Blowback

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Comments

I knew what He was, did NOT vote for Him because of his voting record and am amazed that You All failed to do your homework.

You gave the keys to the Treasury, the Car and the House to that Pretender & His Socialist Buddies. What were You thinking? He is writing checks right now that your Grandchildren won’t be able to cash!

O’bama won 70 percent of the high school dropout vote. No candidate has ever done that before. The closest was Algore with 59% in 2000.

Del Dolemonte on March 28, 2009 at 12:50 PM
interesting, I didn’t know that…but it doesn’t surprise me. look at cities like detroit…where the publik skools leave people uneducated and illiterate…and they keep voting in the democRATs even though the city is a hell-hole…they keep voting for the same old things that have destroyed them..amazing. it goes beyond ignorance, into spiritual darkness…

I still think getalife is Michelle Malkin masquerading as a moonbat. No one is this dense.

Terrye on March 28, 2009 at 2:14 PM

Plenty of Leftists are this dense. All one has to do is look at the studio audiences of “The View” or Bill Maher’s show.

And don’t forget, these people were so stupid that they happily ignored their own candidate’s refusing to release his military record in 2004-despite the fact that he was running solely on said military record. They voted for him anyway.

Can’t blame it all on “Blacks”. It also took a lot of Whites, Yellows and Reds to push us over the edge.

JonRoss on March 28, 2009 at 1:51 PM

oh, i’ll blame the blacks all right. i’ll blame them all day, and all night long. NEVER will they get behind any black person who has any morals and did something with their life that required getting off their ass and working hard and not relying on affirmitive action and what “the man” owes them. black people only seem to praise and triumph the most disgusting, criminal, valueless thugs this world has to offer.

I’ve been wondering for a couple of months,:“Who actually wrote 0bama’s speech at the 2004 Democrat convention, and how many times did he have to practice it with acting coaches to get it right?”

I thought at the time (2004) “This guy is going to go far in politics. He is quite obviously a socialist, if you listen closely to the deeper meanings of what he says, but he says it so well that most people will ignore the substance and go for the style.”

He has since proven that he does not speak well without his teleprompter AND a lot of practice. But I still wonder who wrote that 2004 speech that launched him into super-star status.

It’s curious to them, because their heads were buried up their asses all last year while folks on the right were bringing up legitimate scrutiny of Obama’s qualifications for POTUS. So now, the only word they can come up with to explain their embarrassing sycophant behavior is “curious.”

I’m curious as to when these asshats are going to start practicing unapologetic, principled journalism again, and realize that criticism of Obama is just as important and patriotic as criticism of Bush. The “awe shucks, how did this happen” act is shopworn, and simply exposes the MSM for what they are, which is the PR wing of the Democrat Party.

Yes, doing what he said in the campaign that gave him a mandate shocked some but he saved the economy.

getalife on March 28, 2009 at 10:34 AM

He wasn’t given a “mandate!” (52-53% is hardly a mandate) and the only “mandate” he got was to be the first black president.
No-one paid any attention to what he actually said except we in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
And far from saving the economy, he has tanked it–and it’s continued to tank not only since the day he was elected, but especially since the day he was inaugurated.
You are just plain delusional!

As I watch my country sucked down the toilet and look forward to tax increases that will take every more of the money I need to live, my one small satisfaction is that all the idiots who blindly voted for Obama, against all reason, will be just as screwed as I am.

Zero not being who the Economist thought he was is no excuse because it was quite clear throughout the campaign and before of who Zero WASN’T.

Not qualified. No executive experience. Of dubious birth, of doubtful Harvard and UofCh degrees, close friend of Ayers and Wright etc. A lifetime voting record of voting “present”. A wife with a doubtful 300k / yr. job at University of Chicago Hospital. The empty, cocky swagger of the typical Affirmative Action hire soon to be bounced for not keeping up with the merit hires who are carrying the weight.

Zero is ready for his next job-avoidance photo-op, Mr. DeMille. (Uh, make that “Brown-noser Bob” Schieffer, tomorrow).

Plenty of Leftists are this dense. All one has to do is look at the studio audiences of “The View” or Bill Maher’s show.

And don’t forget, these people were so stupid that they happily ignored their own candidate’s refusing to release his military record in 2004-despite the fact that he was running solely on said military record. They voted for him anyway.

Yes, they ARE that dumb.

Del Dolemonte on March 28, 2009 at 2:42 PM

Even people who you generally give great respect to in most aspects of their lives, are this dumb and they are also intent on protecting their stupidity; The rationalizing of some of their positions is breathtaking. I was discussing with a lib the idiocy of thinking that the gov’t could producea functioning universal healthcare and she actually had the audacity to point to the US postal system as a successful gov’t business.

Remember Barack Obama’s big race speech back in March, the one that invited comparisons to Lincoln? Neither does anyone else, but it seemed like a big deal at the time.

Washington Post has the story right:

One Saturday night in March, Obama called [Jon] Favreau and said he wanted to immediately deliver a speech about race. He dictated his unscripted thoughts to Favreau over the phone for 30 minutes–”It would have been a great speech right then,” Favreau said–and then asked him to clean it up and write a draft. Favreau put it together, and Obama spent two nights retooling before delivering the address in Philadelphia the following Tuesday.
“So,” Obama told Favreau afterward. “I think that worked.”

As I watch my country sucked down the toilet and look forward to tax increases that will take every more of the money I need to live, my one small satisfaction is that all the idiots who blindly voted for Obama, against all reason, will be just as screwed as I am.

Given their judgement during the campaign — Obamania everywhere — who gives a flying f*ck what the Brits think about Palin.

ddrintn on March 28, 2009 at 12:15 PM

The pestilence of Obamania (more correctly known as Obamaphilia) is contagious but is not easily transmitted from person to person. People who have experienced high exposure to liberal media or various irrational ideologies, and the consequent weakening of the intellect are most likely to be afflicted. An intellectual diet that contains a high proportion of facts and the rational analysis thereof seems to confer a significant degree of immunity.

Obamaphilia is a specific variant of the well known neurological affliction known as Celebritiphilia, the principal symptoms of which are an inability to distinguish talent from mediocrity and a perversion of ethical values. Those afflicted have statistically-significant elevated levels of irrationality when compared with non-afflicted persons but it is not yet known if this is a cause or an effect.

Obamaphilia’s counter-affliction is Obamaphobia; this is a specific variant of Barbariphobia which can be characterised as a rational response to a perception of the impending loss of rational government, collapse of civilised values and a rise in disorder, lawlessness and barbarity.

While there have been prominent incidences of Obamaphilia in the UK the disease is not highly contagious and for the most part the UK remains a safe place to visit for work or pleasure. Furthermore many people in the UK have immune systems that are highly resistent to Obamaphilia due to extensive prior exposure to Mr Anthony Blair and Mr Gordon Brown; these socialist intellectual microbes pervaded many households in the UK from the latter part of the 20th century until the present day and gave rise to a increased incidence of resistence to Obamaphilia within the British population.

0bama is a joke and God willing people will be very sick of him and soon enough for the adults to take back the Presidency in 2012. Look for Republican gains in 2010 and the White House in 2012

0bama never run anything except his mouth
Don’t make me laugh at 0bama running the Annenberg Challenge. Bill Ayers ran that and 0bama was the figure head. Ayers was too hot to be the boss there and 0bama being black made it double good for these commie spendthrifts

The dems, who have been playing in left field, started a lefty and have nothing but lefty hitters. Now, if only the repubs will move out of left field and start a righty and stop switch hitting, they may get their base to vote for them again.

Even people who you generally give great respect to in most aspects of their lives, are this dumb and they are also intent on protecting their stupidity; The rationalizing of some of their positions is breathtaking. I was discussing with a lib the idiocy of thinking that the gov’t could producea functioning universal healthcare and she actually had the audacity to point to the US postal system as a successful gov’t business.

It was all I could do to not slap her.

anniekc on March 28, 2009 at 3:53 PM

You can thank America’s public education system for your friend’s stupidity.

Another Leftist economist has also seen his O’bama hangover wear off. Former Enron advisor Paul Krugman is on the cover of next week’s Newsweak, with these three words next to his scowling countenance:

It’s like when the spouse finally comes to the realization that their significant other is having an affair. When they think back the signs were all there, but they chose to ignore them … thinking with your heart instead of your head.

1. 2010 will be a good year for the GOP and 2012 will be even better provided a solid conservative runs for office.

2. We survived Jimmy Carter; we can survive Osama Obama.

3. The Obamaidiots will kiss the ground him and his telepromter walk on (look, you just cannot argue with stupid!) but as I noted previously buyer’s remorse is settling in and people get very angry when Messiahs fail to deliver. Osama Obama is all teleprompter, no brains, and that is rapidly becoming clear.

4. Places that keep electing Democrats, like Detroit and New Orleans, deserve their plight and serve as a beacon of warning to the rest of the country. Let Detroit and the Big Three loose automobile jobs; just more work for the plants in North Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee. Banks go bust, new ones spring up.

BTW, whenever reading any stories about this new Krugman Newsweak cover and article, don’t fall for the propaganda that Krugs “won the Nobel Prize in Economics”. There is no such prize, as even the biased Wikipedia is forced to admit.

CHICAGO – In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation’s most qualified – Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted – has been submitted to the White House.

The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep.
Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.

“It was mostly under the radar,” Williams said. “We thought it would put (the president) in a precarious position. We didn’t know how closely he wanted to appear to be working with the Muslim American community.”

It was fricken obvious what would happen under an Obama presidency. That was why there was a debate among Republicans over whether they should just let him win so he’d screw up the country so much ala Carter that republicans could win again in 2 years.

Look at the bright side. Presidente Pinnochio (a puppet or a real boy?), has appointed Saint Hillary to a fairly high profile postion at which she is showing the same staggering amount of ineptitude as is Urkel himself.

By the time the next election rolls around (2012) either one of these buffoons may have trouble rounding up enough idiots and non existant Acorn registered voters to reach 50%.

You will note that I did not infer that he Won the “Nobel Prize in Economics”.

I said that the confusion was somewhat understandable.

He DID win “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2008″ as administered by the Nobel Foundation.

That’s quite a mouthful Even the acronym of T.S.R.P.I.E.S.I.M.O.A.N. is a bit much. I can understand why people would incorrectly shorten it in a manner that would make some people want to ‘pick nits’.

As I reported weeks ago, the Obama administration has done almost nothing to staff what should be the highest-priority positions in an economic crisis. That’s simply executive incompetence, and it can’t all be blamed on Obama’s level of scrutiny. The man at the top of Treasury committed tax evasion, and he’s still around. Obama issued a waiver a day for his anti-lobbyist policy in the first two weeks of his administration

President TelePrompter keeps saying he ‘inherited this mess’. Just a stall tactic used by the clueless trainee…

“As I reported weeks ago, the Obama administration has done almost nothing to staff what should be the highest-priority positions in an economic crisis. That’s simply executive incompetence, and it can’t all be blamed on Obama’s level of scrutiny.”

Is it incompetence or is it that Obama cannot find people with views compatible enough with his own who could pass even a cursory test of their background? Democrats praise and live the dysfunctional. We’re used to Republicans who praise and live what experience has indicated time and time again works.

There are a lot of people who are educated to the point of jibbering incompetence. Virtually all of them probably voted for Obummer. The few that didn’t most likely failed to vote as they had intended. That seems to happen a lot with the Dems.

President Obama election has created an abomination of U.S. that we will not recover from anytime soon. This abomination is aggravated by politicians forcing solutions on U.S. they have no expertise in offering in the first place. The solution – STOP regulating U.S. into oblivion and let economic forces seek their own balance.

If the government wants stimulation, give all taxpayers an amount of money that will let them pay off all of their debt and invest the rest to make themselves whole, vice giving money to the companies without any accountability.

And why are so many still operating under the illusion (delusion?) that Obama is actually trying to fix our economy, when he is actually doing the opposite?

-Dave

Dave, I have had this thought too. If I can use an analogy, lets suppose you are at the beach and you see a fantastic sand castle, better and more elaborate than any you have seen before. As the tide rolls in the and kid who built it trys setting up bulkwards and moats to stop the incoming water. People are gathered around looking at the castle and thinking what a great job!

Obama is the second kid who comes along and kicks the whole thing down. He doesn’t WANT to fix it, but every onlooker puts himself in a normal persons perspective and keeps waiting for him to do something to repair it.

Even I was in this mode till the AIG thing. I waited for Obama to come out and urge calm, to critize the Unions for terrorizing the families. I thought, “Well he will garner a great deal of good will and his minions will go around to the Sunday talk shows and say “How Presidential”, “How Noble”, “How Statesmenlike.””
.

Never happened.

We are in so much trouble. At some point the Supreme Court is going to have to get involved. This is why Reid and Pelosi are going after Justice Roberts, to weaken the Court and prepare for a major intergovernmental war.

BTW, whenever reading any stories about this new Krugman Newsweak cover and article, don’t fall for the propaganda that Krugs “won the Nobel Prize in Economics”. There is no such prize, as even the biased Wikipedia is forced to admit.

Del Dolemonte on March 28, 2009 at 8:09 PM

My point is that all of his shills are calling it “the Nobel Peace Prize in Economics”, when it is no such thing.

Del Dolemonte on March 28, 2009 at 8:41 PM

While I learned from your and Legend’s exchange, it was you who brought up the “Nobel” first. Also, to be clear, I never was, nor will be a shill for Krugman. I actually can’t stand him. I simply posted that he’s on the cover of Newsweek, against O, which is in and by itself interesting.

To be sure, it is schadenfreudig to see the Economist and Krugman, et company, disappointed in their One. Though upon further reflection, one has to always weigh if that is good or bad for our country.

Shocked, shocked, that a junior half-term senator, with no executive experience at anything, and hordes of radical socialistic mentors behind him, would be a chaotic disaster for a capitalistic system?

How is it “more honest” than Bush? Deficits actually went down during Bush’s second term, at least until 2008

Because Bush inherited a budget surplus, and still managed to rack up $4 trillion in federal debt. Why? Because ‘deficits dont matter’. It wasn’t that Bush ended in an era of underlying wealth creation, ended our nation’s dependence on foreign energy, or put a man on the moon. It was simply that Bush felt like giving the nation $4 trillion in debt because, after all, why not?

Also OT – but I hope this nonsense doesn’t screw with the grid. Any electrical people can correct me here, but I understand that the grid isn’t real good when there are large changes in demand. Something about the generators are already spooled up and dropping a whole lot of load can do bad things.

Unlike the typical liberal I do know when I’m not an expert at something..

Shocked, shocked, that a junior half-term senator, with no executive experience at anything, and hordes of radical socialistic mentors behind him, would be a chaotic disaster for a capitalistic system?

No sh*t, Sherlocks!

profitsbeard on March 29, 2009 at 3:49 PM

Heck, Achmed at my local 7 11 where you can buy the economist has a LOT more executive experience than obama did going into the election. Seriously. He employs about 5 people, Keeps his books, pays his taxes etc.

oh, i’ll blame the blacks all right. i’ll blame them all day, and all night long. NEVER will they get behind any black person who has any morals and did something with their life that required getting off their ass and working hard and not relying on affirmitive action and what “the man” owes them. black people only seem to praise and triumph the most disgusting, criminal, valueless thugs this world has to offer.

He wasn’t given a “mandate!” (52-53% is hardly a mandate) and the only “mandate” he got was to be the first black president.
No-one paid any attention to what he actually said except we in the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.
And far from saving the economy, he has tanked it–and it’s continued to tank not only since the day he was elected, but especially since the day he was inaugurated.
You are just plain delusional!

Jenfidel on March 28, 2009 at 3:26 PM

Funny, when Bush won by the same percentage you Republicans were screaming “MANDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Incredible how things have changed.